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In our emails, sent once or twice a week, you'll receive:
• alerts on new threats to America's environment
• opportunities to join other Americans on urgent actions
• updates on the decisions that impact our environment
• resources to help you create a cleaner, greener future

Updates

We won monumental clean car standards.

On July 29, 2011, President Obama announced the outline of new clean car standards covering cars and light trucks through 2025. The new standards will require new cars to achieve a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon. Thousands of our members helped seal the deal by emailing the White House and attending Environmental Protection Agency hearings in support of the standards.

"It's clear that our nation's polluters have deep pockets, but hundreds of thousands of Americans have raised their voices in support of doing more to protect our waterways, from the Chesapeake Bay to Puget Sound," Ally Fields, clean water advocate at Environment America, said in a statement. "It's time for Congress to listen to citizens, not the polluters, and let the EPA finish the job to protect our waterways."

President Obama vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have approved the Keystone XL pipeline, making good on a threat to reject a proposal embraced by Republicans as a jobs measure but opposed by environmentalists as contributing to climate change.

A conservation group held a mock “auction” of the Grand Canyon Wednesday to illustrate what they said could happen if Congress strips the president’s authority to identify and protect national monuments.

The event came one week after President Barack Obama designated three new national monuments in Colorado, Hawaii and Illinois. The president is also considering such a designation for the 1.7 million acre watershed surrounding the Grand Canyon.

A new report ranks the state 12th nationally for the number of people employed in the solar industry, up from 20th in 2013. According to The Solar Foundation, 1,700 solar jobs were added last year, bringing the total to 3,800 in Illinois.

As a lifelong Marylander, I'm proud of the progress that our state has made through successful, bi-partisan initiatives supporting renewable and efficient energy throughout the state. As such, I was concerned when I read a letter published in the Sun on Jan. 26 ("Maryland bucks the trend on solar energy"). The author, an environmental stakeholder, mentioned that she was embarrassed that Maryland hasn't taken enough steps to support solar energy. Unfortunately, she misses a significant portion of the statistical narrative.